Plenty of Americans grow up watching pro wrestling. Only a small percentage grow up to cover the pro wrestling world as journalists. An even smaller number of those pro wrestling journalists are female. We’d venture to guess that Kari Williams is one of the only female, pro wrestling freelancers who started covering the circuit while in high school. Williams sat …
Jai Tanner’s yearbook career spans 21 years and three different states – and that’s not even counting her high school yearbook experience. She spent the first three quarters of her career in Texas and New Mexico. Her yearbook staff at Franklin High School in El Paso, Texas, was no stranger to Crowns and Pacemakers. Her move from the Southwest to …
Are your readers actually reading your yearbook? In many cases, the answer is “no,” and with good reason.
Most yearbooks are not written to be read. Yearbook copy tends to be a collection of non-compelling facts put together too lazily and too hastily, without regard for the reader. While that is a harsh indictment, it is often true and it is nothing new.
Hey, you worked hard on the yearbook — wouldn’t it be nice if people read it? Instead of dull and lifeless facts, stories should be a collection of interesting people caught in defining moments — moments that reveal character and personality.
Taking part in yearbooks or scholastic journalism doesn’t always translate to a career in journalism. For Jennifer Ward, it did… at first. She had an impressive news career, with positions at the Dallas Morning News Online and the Fresno Bee. Eventually, she decided to follow her heart and opened a store dedicated to tabletop games, the Crazy Squirrel Game Store …
Trying to come up with an interesting idea for a yearbook feature story? Sometimes it can be difficult coming up with a unique angle, but the fact that you’re trying means you’re on the right track! “A yearbook shouldn’t be full of topics,” according to Brady Smekens, former adviser of the Deka yearbook staff at Huntington North High School, Huntington, Indiana. “Rather, it should tell the story of students. In the process, the topics get covered.” The list of story ideas on this page will help editors start brainstorming for coverage unique to their school and the current year.
We’re excited to introduce Behind the Byline, a new show from the Walsworth Yearbooks Podcast Network (WYPN). Hosted by Evan Blackwell, CJE, Jenica Hallman and Sarah Scott, Behind the Byline explores the possibilities opened up by scholastic journalism. All three hosts have a background in high school and/or college publications. In each episode, they interview a guest with a scholastic …
Good leads begin stories. Bad leads can finish them. If the first couple of sentences don’t make the reader feel helplessly curious and compelled to continue, your body copy won’t be read. Yearbook leads don’t sum up the entire article like newspaper leads. Instead, they give the reader a tempting taste of what lies ahead without necessarily addressing the main point of the story. They can tease, mislead, startle, amuse – anything that will invoke the reader’s curiosity. Study the following types of leads. Learn to write more creative and effective leads – leads that are real attention-getters.
While working with schools at the Kansas City Elite Weekend this September, Ask Mike host Mike Taylor, CJE, was really impressed by four students. So he interviewed them. These four young women are exceptional leaders, and their conversations with Taylor show how capable student leaders can be. Taylor chats with them about their roles in producing the great writing their …
Everyone always wants to know what the current “trends” are for the upcoming yearbook year. What cool things are other schools doing that we should consider doing? Or even better, what did we do that has become a trend that everyone is going to be doing in 2019? At every workshop and every convention everyone wants to hear this session. …
The websites Humans of New York and StoryCorps are great examples of written and visual storytelling. Use them to teach your students how to get more personal interest stories into this year’s book if there’s time, or to start training next year’s reporters. One of a journalist’s primary jobs is to tell compelling stories. Telling great stories starts with trust …